Connect with us

Published

on

As the riots raged in the U.K., Elon Musk began making incendiary comments about the situation, including the statement: “Civil war is inevitable.” Musk is the owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as X.

Aytug Can Sencar | Anadolu | Getty Images

While top executives from Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft are headed to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a hearing on election threats, Elon Musk’s X won’t be participating.

A representative for Sen. Mark R. Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in an emailed statement that X “declined to send an appropriate witness.” No further details were provided.

A spokesperson for X told CNBC that the company’s invited witness was Nick Pickles, who had been the head of global affairs but “resigned on September 6.” Warner’s office said X declined to send a replacement after Pickles’ departure.

The hearing is titled “Foreign Threats to Elections in 2024 — Roles and Responsibilities of U.S. Tech Providers.” Alphabet will be represented by Kent Walker, the president and chief legal officer, while Meta’s head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, will represent the social networking company. Microsoft President Brad Smith will represent the software giant.

The hearing, which is being led Warner (D-Va.) and committee Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), is centered around lawmakers’ concerns over foreign entities that are attempting to influence the outcome of the presidential elections in November using the biggest tech platforms.

Alphabet and Microsoft recently published research into the efforts by Iranian and Russian hacking groups to influence or attack officials linked to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. The hackers have utilized various tactics including spear phishing.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration said it’s targeting Russian government-sponsored attempts to affect U.S. public opinion.

“We will be relentlessly aggressive in countering and disrupting attempts by Russia, Iran, as well as China or any other foreign malign actor” attempting to “interfere in elections and undermine our members,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement at the time.

X’s absence from the Wednesday hearing follows a streak of divisive posts by Musk, the world’s richest person, on the app, formerly known as Twitter, which he acquired in 2022. Musk has close to 200 million listed followers.

After a second apparent assassination attempt against Republican former President Donald Trump over the weekend, Musk shared then deleted a post questioning why there weren’t more assassination threats made against President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. Biden and Harris have both received assassination threats while in office.

European news agencies also reported this week that Musk has previously shared content on X that had been created by the Social Design Agency, which led a propaganda campaign at the Kremlin’s direction, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

On Wednesday, Musk shared a false story on X that claimed explosives were found in a car near Trump’s planned rally in Long Island, New York. According to a statement from Nassau County police, a civilian near the site of the rally had falsely reported explosives being found.

In the early stages of the meeting Wednesday afternoon, Warner said “it’s a shame” that no one from X appeared. He said that, prior to Musk’s takeover, the company was a “collaborator.”

“Under X, they are absent and some of the most egregious activity has taken place” on the platform, Warner said.

WATCH: SpaceX will be filing suit against the FAA for regulatory overreach.

SpaceX will sue the FAA for regulatory overreach, Elon Musk posts on X

Continue Reading

Technology

Microsoft enters portable gaming with new ROG Xbox Ally devices

Published

on

By

Microsoft enters portable gaming with new ROG Xbox Ally devices

Microsoft ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X Handheld devices

Source: Xbox

Microsoft Xbox players will soon be able to take their favorite games anywhere with the launch of the new ROG Xbox Ally handhelds.

This is a first for Xbox, which has never released a handheld before.

The devices, developed in collaboration with ASUS, offer a full-screen Xbox experience meant for portable play.

Players will be able to access Xbox games, stream content, and play on the go with built-in support for cloud gaming.

“Players can look forward to an approachable gaming experience that travels with you wherever you go, featuring several new and first-of-their kind features on both devices,” Microsoft said in a press release.

The announcement follows last week’s debut of Nintendo‘s flagship Switch 2 and sets the stage for a new chapter in portable gaming.

Continue Reading

Technology

Vantage raises $820 million in a first-of-its-kind cloud and AI data center deal in Europe

Published

on

By

Vantage raises 0 million in a first-of-its-kind cloud and AI data center deal in Europe

U.S. data center operator Vantage has raised 720 million euros ($821.4 million) — the first of its kind deal in Europe.

The asset-backed securitization (ABS) deal, the first ever euro-denominated with data center assets on the continent, involves four data centers in Germany.

The company said it will be paying on average a 4.3% coupon on the bonds issued through the process.

In an ABS, Vantage raises money by using its data center infrastructure and future revenues from the facilities as collateral.

Vantage said it will use the funds primarily to pay off existing construction loans previously secured for the facilities.

“We believe the ABS market in particular is kind of best suited for our type of asset, which is real estate centric, high credit quality tenants, long term leases, something that is almost perfect for the ABS investor,” Sharif Metwalli, chief financial officer of Vantage Data Centers, told CNBC.

Vantage added that despite the large sum borrowed, the demand from investors exceeded the amount raised.

“So this transaction was actually pretty highly levered, frankly,” Rich Cosgray, senior vice president of global capital markets at Vantage Data Centers told CNBC. “It was higher leverage than our prior transaction and we had some investors that just weren’t comfortable at that leverage level.”

“Yet, despite that, we were basically two and four times oversubscribed on the respective financings, and we were able to tighten pricing pretty meaningfully through the marketing process,” Cosgray added.

The four facilities — two in Berlin and two in Frankfurt — have access to around 55 megawatts of power and “are fully leased to hyperscale customers,” the company said in a statement. The four facilities were valued at more than $1 billion earlier this year.

Last year, Vantage also raised £600 million through the first-ever securitization of a data center in Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA). The deal involved two units from the company’s Cardiff campus with 148 megawatts of electricity power. Across the region, the company has 2,500 megawatts of data center capacity either operational or under development.

The transaction was led by Barclays Bank and Deutsche Bank as joint lead managers and Vantage was represented by the British law firm Clifford Chance.

Continue Reading

Technology

IonQ buys UK quantum startup Oxford Ionics for more than $1 billion

Published

on

By

IonQ buys UK quantum startup Oxford Ionics for more than  billion

Cheng Xin | Getty Images

IonQ is buying United Kingdom-based quantum computing startup Oxford Ionics in a deal valued at nearly $1.1 billion.

Shares gained about 4%.

The companies said in a release that the deal will combine IonQ’s quantum computing hardware and software knowledge with Oxford Ionics’ semiconductor chip technologies. The company aims to deliver breakthroughs in the field and capitalize on growing revenue opportunities.

“We believe the advantages of our combined technologies will set a new standard within quantum computing and deliver superior value for our customers through market-leading enterprise applications,” said IonQ CEO Niccolo De Masi in a release.

The deal, which is expected to close this year, includes $1.065 billion worth of IonQ shares and about $10 million in cash. The merged company expects to build systems with 256 qubits by 2026, over 10,000 by 2027 and 2 million by 2030.

Interest in quantum computing has skyrocketed in recent months after technology giants Microsoft and Alphabet announced new chip breakthroughs. Experts tout the technology’s ability to solve intricate computing tasks unachievable by other computers.

Read more CNBC tech news

IonQ’s CEO previously told CNBC that he wants the company to become the “800-pound gorilla” in the quantum world.

Shares of Maryland-based company, which went public through a special purpose acquisition company in late 2021, are down about 6% year to date. The stock has soared more than 400% from a year ago.

WATCH: IonQ CEO on earnings: Leading the world in ‘the quantum internet’

IonQ CEO on earnings: Leading the world in 'the quantum internet'

Continue Reading

Trending